Abstract

Recent comparative studies indicate surprising flexibility of regulatory systems in bacteria. These systems can be analyzed on several levels, and I plan to consider two of them. At the level of regulon evolution, one can attempt to characterize the evolution of regulon content formed by loss, gain and duplications of regulators and regulated genes, as well as gain and loss of individual regulatory sites and horizontal gene transfer. At the level of transcription factor families, one can study co-evolution of DNA-binding proteins and the motifs they recognize. While this area is not yet ripe for fully automated analysis, the results of systematic comparative studies gradually start to coalesce into an understanding of how bacteria regulatory systems evolve.